• WHO’s role in coordinating international health efforts
• How can WHO mitigate budget constraints?
• How can WHO respond to health emergencies faster?
• Careers in international organisations
• References

Up till the first half of the twentieth century, an international health organisation did not exist. Regional health authorities in Europe and the Americas used to be responsible for preventing and controlling the spread of diseases such as cholera, smallpox, and typhus (McCarthy, 2002). Immediately after the Second World War, world leaders realised the need for a global health agency. Subsequently, 55 member states of the United Nations created the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948.

I believe that visiting WHO headquarters in Geneva should be a unique learning experience for me. As I will meet with experts there, I hope to gain a deeper understanding of WHO’s governance, performance, and reformation. In this post, I will describe WHO’s role followed by my queries about WHO’s structure and function. Additionally, I will outline how to use this study trip for exploring career prospects.

WHO’s initial priority was to fight infections such as malaria and tuberculosis and to improve maternal and child health, nutrition, and sanitation (McCarthy, 2002). Over the decades, it has widened its scope to guide and coordinate international health policy. For instance, WHO’s Thirteenth General Programme of Work 2019–2023 aims to achieve the “Triple Billion targets”: providing universal health coverage to one billion more people, protecting one billion more people from health emergencies, and ensuring a further billion people enjoy better health and well-being (WHO, n.d.).

In order to keep the world safe, WHO promotes health globally in multiple ways. Its main function is to improve primary health care in every country by developing partnerships with other global health initiatives, supporting policy development, and training the health workforce. It provides member states with science-based recommendations for health policy, thereby setting norms and best practices (Huang, 2020). Accordingly, it issues guidance on essential medicines, diagnostic tests, and priority medical devices. In addition, WHO coordinates many health-related issues such as tobacco and drug use, genetically modified foods, road safety, and climate change (Council on Foreign Relations, 2022).

As the global guardian of health, WHO responds to health emergencies worldwide. Under the International Health Regulations (IHR)—a legal agreement drawn up in 2005 to address health crises—member states are required to report to WHO any potential outbreaks (Huang, 2020). If any disease outbreak has unknown cause and significant risk of international spread, WHO has the authority to declare a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). WHO has resorted to PHEIC six times so far, and its latest PHEIC declaration came out on 30 January 2020 amid the global outbreak of COVID-19 (Council on Foreign Relations, 2022).

During a PHEIC, WHO acts as a global coordinator and issues nonbinding guidance to its members. It helps concerned countries to develop effective responses to the emergency. At the request of a member state, WHO can bring in international assistance: medical supplies and equipment, doctors and other medical professionals, and support for local governments (WHO, n.d.). It also provides treatment guidelines. Additionally, it issues guidance on potential travel and trade restrictions in order to prevent other countries from overreacting and imposing unwarranted economic harm on the country in crisis (Council on Foreign Relations, 2022).

Over the decades, WHO has proved its relevance with international health work. Specifically, the agency has garnered praise for its child vaccination programmes. It has played a key role in eradicating smallpox in 1979 and reducing polio infections by 99 percent in recent decades (Council on Foreign Relations, 2022). Furthermore, WHO’s leadership role during the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak was deemed a success (Huang, 2020). The SARS epidemic was concentrated only in Asia and did not extend to all countries in the world.

Despite monumental achievements, WHO has its inherent limitations. The health agency’s troublesome budget coupled with delayed responses to health emergencies has sparked debate over its effectiveness. Therefore, I will identify the challenges for WHO and the need for its reformation.

The World Health Assembly—consisting of WHO member states—oversees WHO’s governance by setting its agenda, devising its policy, approving its budget, and electing a director-general to lead the agency for a five-year term. The director general is responsible for raising funds for the organisation’s multi-billion-dollar budget. WHO’s budget is set for a two-year period, and the current two-year (2022–23) budget is about $6.1 billion (Council on Foreign Relations, 2022).

WHO receives funding from two sources: mandatory dues paid by members and voluntary contributions from member states as well as from non-profit organisations. Membership dues—currently contributing roughly 16 percent to WHO’s total budget—are calculated as a percentage of each country’s GDP (WHO, n.d.). The World Health Assembly assesses membership dues every two years.

The lion’s share of WHO’s funds comes from voluntary contributions. In recent years, WHO’s top voluntary funders have included member states such as Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom as well as private partners such as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Gavi Alliance, and Rotary International. In contrast to membership dues, voluntary donations are set aside for specific initiatives. As WHO has become increasingly dependent on voluntary contributions over the past decade, it could face difficulty in setting its own course (Council on Foreign Relations, 2022). How does WHO cope with the pressure to align its goals with those of its donors?

WHO has repeatedly come under fire for its slow and poorly coordinated responses to international public health crises. For example, the WHO response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa was perceived as a failure. Despite pleas from groups such as Doctors Without Borders, WHO initially dismissed the magnitude of the emergency. It waited five months before declaring Ebola a PHEIC. However, the PHEIC designation was too late for formulating an effective response. Critics have pointed out that political friction between WHO’s headquarters in Geneva and its Africa office led to the agency’s poor response to the Ebola outbreak (Council on Foreign Relations, 2022).

More recently, WHO’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis has raised concerns over its performance. The Trump administration criticised WHO for trusting China too much in the beginning stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and sounding the alarm too late (Huang, 2020). In May 2020, the US President Trump even announced that the US would withdraw from WHO (Council on Foreign Relations, 2022). But his successor Joe Biden halted the US exit immediately after taking office.

The two cases mentioned previously indicate that two factors contribute to WHO’s slow response to outbreaks: tension between WHO’s headquarters and its regional offices and mishandling of outbreaks by member states. How can WHO overcome these barriers to success?

As a UN arm, WHO operates on a global scale. The agency’s 7,000 staff are working in its headquarters and offices in more than 150 locations around the world (Huang, 2020). It has a very diverse workforce that includes not only physicians, public health experts, and scientists but also emergency relief staff, economists, and statisticians. Indeed, my trip to WHO headquarters in Geneva should provide me with aspirations and insights necessary to launch an international career.

By the end of the study trip, I expect to figure out answers to the following questions:

• How can I prepare for jobs in international governmental organisations (IGOs)?
• What are the challenges of a career in an international organisation?
• What are the benefits of working in an international agency?

Council on Foreign Relations, 2022. What Does the World Health Organization Do?. [Online] Available at: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-does-world-health-organization-do [Accessed 27 February 2023].

Huang, P., 2020. Explainer: What Does The World Health Organization Do?. [Online] Available at: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/28/847453237/what-is­who-and-what-does-it-do

[Accessed 28 February 2023].

McCarthy, M., 2002. A brief history of the World Health Organization. [Online] Available at: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(02)11244-

X/fulltext

[Accessed 26 February 2023].

WHO, n.d. Frequently asked questions. [Online]

Available at: https://www.who.int/about/frequently-asked-questions

[Accessed 28 February 2023].